Musical Minimalism: Table Lamp Cubes from Cassette Tapes

By dornob

Style is built on associations, and few folks alive in the 80s (or even 90s) can forget the feeling of putting in a magnetic tape to play their favorite tunes … or the sinking sensation of an analogue player eating your unique mix of radio-recorded tracks.

This refined design known simply as the TapeLamp plays on our memory, but lets you play with it directly as well – each little tape can be wound left or right, changing the look and satisfying our urge to tinker.

The lamp frame is minimalist and unobtrusive. A single laser-cut, plexi-glass sheet matches the clear plastic of the tapes that slot inside the spaces. Curves toward each corner make for small supports without adding separate legs.

This is not the first design featured here to include recycled retro cassettes, but offers a somewhat different take – rather than reusing, mixing and matching, the process is incredibly controlled and the product correspondingly more refined. Neither is necessarily better – perhaps one of each would work best, for the classical-music fan on the one hand and the punk rocker or metal head on the other.